A Blogger's Rant: The Pajama Jokes Are Getting Really Old

Here is what I'm wearing right now: a blue collared shirt (ironed), gray linen pants (belted) and tan desert boots (Clark's). I tell you this not because you asked, but because I am a blogger, and, to judge from the way the world speaks of my kind, you probably assumed I was wearing something more along the lines of this.

Hard to argue with that. But I would add: Professional writers should come up with their own colorful put-downs rather than relying on tired, overused turns of phrase that aren't even particularly apt.

It's Bedtime for Pajama Jokes

Jokes about bloggers in pajamas were already a cliche by 2005, when a group of blogs banded together to form Pajamas Media. They were even more hackneyed by 2008, when Sarah Palin swatted at "some blogger probably sittin' there in their parents' basement in their pajamas." Now it's 2010. Paul Krugman blogs. So does Hendrik Hertzberg. So does James Fallows. So does...well, everyone.

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, who was offended by his dentist's bad Jewish jokes as a comedian rather than as a Jew, I object to characterizations like Risen's not as a blogger but as a reader. Bloggers may frequently be too lazy to pick up the phone and break news of their own, but when it comes to finding novel ways to make fun of people, we're the very soul of enterprise.